Anything But Diamond
by hugwarts
Summary: johndave zombie apocalypse there is literally no way this can go wrong. rated m for gore imminent with zombies and porn imminent with johndave, neither of which have strictly speaking occurred yet. but i promise you they will.


**a/n: hi hello bear with this chapter it's kinda wind-y (not windy lol) and i meant for zombies to appear earlier but you know the drill**

**i don't usually publish things on ff tbh i use ao3 but i'm writing for new characters and i feel self-conscious! anyway hopefully everyone isn't crazy ooc! uwu if you are reading this i love you and stuff and if you have any questions/concerns my tumblr is manbrobukkake and i will probably x-post this to ao3 once it doesn't suck because porn is outlined later on if i follow my outline and apparently ff doesn't like porn idgi porn is the best okay this is long and rambly skip this shit**

Dirk was on the way home from the store, toting a twelve-pack of orange soda and two plastic bags stuffed with Cool Ranch Doritos, when he saw it: a man splayed out on the ground, two gunshot wounds glistening in the smog-deadened moonlight.

Dirk had seen stranger in his years (including but not limited to: his brother's comics, oddly arousing furry porn), but something about the toppled grocery cart next to the man full of distinctly non-ordinary supplies aroused suspicions and curiosities in a completely different way than the furry porn had. Furry porn couldn't even touch the shopping cart full of rusty and likely non-operational gun parts, what looked like a large barrel full of Spam globules that had been painstakingly removed from the cans that were scattered around the roadway, and the foam deer torso studded with mismatched arrows, none of which appeared to fit the large crossbow slung across the bottom rack of the cart. By far the least suspicious item was the cardboard box full of empty syringes. Heroin addicts he'd seen.

In a lesser situation, Dirk would have left the man to be handled by one of the countless screaming women who had gathered about, but his long stare and innate manliness seemed to have elected him to the position of Ambulance Caller Probably Going To Have To Go To The Fucking Police Station For This Shit Even If You Have A Seventeen-Year-Old Bro Who Needs His Recommended Daily Allowance of Doritos Where The Hell Else Is He Going To Get His Vitamins. Fantastic, this is exactly what he needed on his Thursday night.

At exactly 3:12 AM on Thursday night (or Friday morning if you were a "huge tightass," as his aunt said), you begin pestering your best bro. You know it's 3:12 AM exactly because you had made a special mental note in during your last conversation to pester him at exactly 2:45 AM. That conversation went something like this:

EB: hey, dave! i'm going to see the new nic cage movie now! midnight release! my dad got me tickets as a late birthday present. probably to make up for the fact that my fridge is still packed with cake...

TG: ok well when youre done salivating over nic cages delicious man breasts and the folds in his impossibly huge forehead

EB: hey!

TG: no i take it back his forehead is only huge because of the receding hairline so common in the maxim hot 100 type that appeals to john egbert

EB: whoa, dave, i didn't realize that sincerely appreciating someone's life work was so homosexual! you should talk to rose about that.

TG: ok well when youve gotten kicked out of whatever movie this is with the poor children and their mothers screaming about the bad man whipping his pork sword out when cage makes the final jump into a hotel swimming pool

TG: and emerges dripping wet with his pants clinging so tightly to his hard ripped bod

TG: when youve gotten out all that pent up jizz and voyeurism

TG: ive got something to tell you

TG: so

EB: really? is it a surprise?

TG: no

- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 22:56 -

For some reason, you had determined the time would be 2:45 AM. You would pester John at 2:45. You had gotten so close, over and over again. But not close enough to type the words. How do you even say that? "hey bro i know you invited some random dude from the internet to chill at your house all expenses paid for the summer and i probably cant do it because i wont be able to make it through the summer because surprise youve invited a big gay into your house and im not housetrained and im gonna pee on you and your shitty movies and rip up your shoes to use as the stuffing to my big gay puppet dildo chewy toy"

Yeah, that sounds about right. He brought it on himself, though, really. You cannot just invite someone you've never even seen before to your house. Hadn't he ever been warned about the dangers of giving out personal information on the internet? Hadn't his elementary school teacher warned him about pedophiles who only want your address to kidnap you or send you paraphernalia from movies that shouldn't reasonably exist? That's the problem with John: you can communicate for years, you can be best friends, but he never even thinks to ask for a photo. He doesn't bother to verify your far-fetched stories about living under the care of an elusive internet magnate and "ninja master," doesn't bother to check out your Chumbook profile before inviting you across the country to his house for two months. How does a person like that even exist without being kidnapped by an internet pedophile bent on stealing John's enviable innocence and "swagalicious" (another Roxy-ism, you think. Your bro had taken to using it ironically, and it's a catchy phrase.) collection of shitty movie posters and authentic shit valued at approximately $12.53 altogether.

(You know about John's movie posters. You know a lot more about John than he knows you know. You've seen his chumbook, and his face, more often than not with the smile you'd have known he had even if you never saw a photo: huge and impossibly genuine and scary both in its earnestness and its striking lack of necessary orthodontia. Though when you're imagining running your tongue over that bright smile, tasting the sun and the stars in his mouth, feeling him harden against you because John is totally a homosexual in this gratuitous daydream and wait what? After a quick (really quick) date with a sock and a Costco-sized bottle of lotion, you summarize the point of the tangent: buckteeth are way hotter than braces in the late teens and probably less dangerous to blowjobs.

Anyway, you've seen him before. You have a few of your favorites saved to your desktop in a folder labeled "more wizard fanfic to beta." (Like your cousin would entrust you with her sordid fanfiction.) (You consider the prospect that your raging homocrush and lust object chats with frequency with your flighty broad of a cousin. If she's-you feel nauseous. What if you're not as smooth as you seem? No, no, you're willing to entertain the idea that your cousin accidentally slipped John a few pictures, but you know you're fucking smooth.)

You've Google-mapped his house, though he had given you that address, so you feel that particular flight of fancy has been absolved in the scale of weird stalker things.

But you've never actually stalked him. That might have crossed a boundary somewhere. It's just your shitty brain, so fucking infuriating. You start pestering him even though he's offline and you're sure you're making an idiot out of yourself.

-turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 3:12-

TG: how does that even work

TG: your chumhandle i mean isnt it supposed to be two words not one goddamn prefix and a word

TG: you think just because youve decided youre our fearless chumpleader you can break all the rules

TG: i demand the highest punishments available by law

TG: get tz to drop some radical justice on you in the form of a fierce drubbing or execution by way of licking

TG: still don't get how that works either but itll damn sure kill you

TG: fucking saliva like poison dart frogs they look all colorful and adorable and then bam youre dead in the amazon rainforest and your body is taken to some chicks house and she stuffs you and uses you as a doll in her fucked up necrophiliac tea parties

EB: dave? what are you talking about?

TG: oh hey

EB: the movie was fantastic, btw, but you already knew that!

EB: it should be on dvd by the time you visit this summer! we can watch it together! i've got all the classics. it might take us a while, though...

TG: fuck i cant do this

-turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 3:21-

You jump onto your bed and begin punching it immediately. Yeah, real smooth, Strider. The smoothest. You're a coward, nothing more. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You build up your big confession and then you don't even follow through. He probably already thought you were a giant pretentious douchenozzle.

"Hey, Bro, I'm going out, okay?"

You received no response. It wasn't uncommon. It wasn't uncommon for Bro to just not come home. He was a busy man, juggling all that fucking swag. Many things were lost in translation as you grew older: the fetus, for one, wasn't preserved correctly and had to be thrown away when it began rotting and filling the apartment with dead-baby smell. But your bro remained the bomb, the chillest dude, the master, everything you aspired to.

Thinking about it now, your bro would probably know how to help you. He'd understand. But probably not, seeing as you don't know if he had ever really come out. As far as you could tell, he just went out and picked the hot dudes out of the gaggle of adorers.

"Bro?"

You wouldn't normally call him. Especially not right about now. You didn't want this morning's conquest to hear the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic theme (irony only goes so far) blasting from Dirk's phone. Even worse, you didn't want him to answer the phone mid-fuck. He's done it before, and your brother moaning is not a noise you ever wanted to hear.

You pull out your iPhone. Missed calls. That's uncharacteristic. You call him and receive no response.

Your previous embarrassment overshadowed by niggling worry, you retrieve a gallon of cherry sorbet ("Bro, this is easily _the_ gayest dessert option available in bulk. It's fucking fat-free, what is this, World War II? Are we a fat-rationing family, is that it?") and a Hot Pocket from the freezer, carefully extracting a throwing star from the packaging before microwaving it. You drag your spoils back to your computer and pull your Con Air download up from your decoy wizard fanfiction folder. Might as well be named "dave is whipped as fuck call the bdsm dungeons."

You'd never admit to watching the movie. You'd never admit to liking the movie. If you did admit it, it would still be a lie. Your relationship with Con Air is like when a long distance couple in one of Karkat's even dumber rom-coms comfort each other with the thought that they are both looking at the same stars, even if the stars are shaped like penises and only one part of the couple even thinks stars are cool. You feel closer to him when Cameron Poe reunites with his loving wife and daughter.

You feel like, in another universe, you could be cuddling on his couch, your nose buried in his hair and his head situated uncomfortably in your armpit. But a John wedged into an armpit is nothing to be scoffed at. In fact, you can feel him and he's so warm and solid and there and you ache because in your daydreams things work out perfectly and you're not an issue and your facade is not an issue and John's gender is not an issue and John's penis certainly isn't an issue.

But enough of that indulgent self-pity, you say.

You still don't put away the sorbet.

(It would be tastier with the fat.)

You fall asleep thinking about John's shampoo.

oooooooooooooooooo

When you wake up, the cherry sorbet is disgustingly liquid, with a layer of sugar crystals forming around the sides.

You take a look at your clock. It's already dark again in your room, but you don't worry about missing school anymore, not after Bro's display of swordsmanship around the CPS officer. (Bro's a good substitute parent, you know that. Other people find his methods suspect.)

So, it's 10:45. And your bro still isn't home. Maybe he came home and left already, you think. You begin to fuck around on your blogs. A message pops up, and for a second, your heart jumps. _JohnJohnJohnJohn_. But it's just another fangirl:

omg look! zombies! in tx, 2, right near u! haha lol xD ur awesome probly caused the zombies. stay safe w those swords of yours like the zombies could even touch you-if they could id wanna be one too lol ;););) 3

She had linked to an article about some sort of flesh-eating bacteria found in Houston linked to a shooting death. Wow, like he needed more fear-mongering internet stupidity this early in the morning. Or night. Or whatever.

You scroll through the article to avoid the now-blinking message notification from John. You'd been excited at the prospect, but now you're terrified, and those feelings of inadequacy and idiocy and infatuation are coalescing into a wave of nausea even worse than last night, aided and abetted by several pints of cherry sorbet making its way through your intestinal tract.

The article's hosted on a major news site rather than the meme site or joke blog you were anticipating, and your nausea grows worse. You're genre-savvy as fuck, and you know that you'd make a damn good character in a zombie apocalypse scenario. You've got the weapons-savvy, the appeal to the ladies (and yaoi fangirls), the biting wit that's sharp it's like it was scripted by a team of middle-aged comedy writers disenfranchised by their own industry and forced to work as writers for mainstream B-movies. Fuck, John would love that movie. Even if you think he probably doesn't understand the multi-faceted irony you dish out on a daily basis.

This is how every topic naturally comes back to him. This is how reading an article about a zombie apocalypse is him and a zombie apocalypse is him and your brother missing is him and you can't do anything to stop it so you start reading, hoping the press' spin on a zombie apocalypse will make you think about dead people and stringy muscle hanging loosely to bones rather than a stupidly cheerful teenager who is a) not here and b) not interested.

It doesn't work.


End file.
